Days With a Knight

While the others were off playing in the ruins of Ishantara, Annika was busy being witchy and doing witchy thing. Like time traveling. Okay. Mostly she was time traveling.

Her familiar, the fox Farley, received a sort of hint from their Masters. That Annika’s cause, and their own, would be aided by a sojourn back. A quick hop, that’s it. Of course. Farley wasn’t comfortable with it at all. He’s a sensible sort of familiar.

Nevertheless, she wanted to, and she followed him into a sort of in-between place. She walked with Farley along a thin grey ribbon threaded through a vast and endless white. Proportion and distance twisted, and she wasn’t quite sure how the place really functioned at all. Every few hundred (maybe) feet there was a subsidiary ribbon of a different color and texture running off.

She took a silver, branching, tree like, ribbon off the main path – running after Farley emerging onto an ordinary dirt path through a wooded, hilly, area. In the distance she saw a marble spire rising above hill and treetop.

Annika followed the path, up to the tower (Ishantara), which was surrounded by sparkling new masonry and a set of adamantine gates. What followed was a series of question and answer with a Gothii guard that proved hilarious in its frivolity and larkiness. She was shot, ran away, had her fox explore the wall, tried to bribe the young guard with gems in broad daylight and eventually delivered a rousing speech about the fate and destiny of the world. She was let in.
Upon questioning the young guard about the Hammer and Psalms, she quickly learned that there were no other guards here – and that he was a person known as the Shadow Man. He’d been hired to defend Discipline, to seal and protect it on behalf of the Gothii. He sealed Annika and Farley to the fate of the book, cursing them to slumber in shadows until Discipline departed from Ishantara.

Two hundred and fifty years later, she appeared outside the gates and continued on with the rest of her party with minimal fus.

As they traveled down the road, a golden heron appeared in the sky and dropped a letter down through the clouds to land at Dory’s feet. It was from Cyril. It informed them they’d been gone about a year, and that he himself had found two of the Psalms far off in the Gothiiland.

Saeche stayed to listen to Dory read off the part about a year, that they’d somehow lost a year while hidden away inside the tower, and set off at a run. Her ship! She was…a bit distressed. Okay. Come clean time. Saeche was having a psychotic break and ready to stab anything and everything that got in her way.

Along the road back to Eismonts they encountered the Seeker and his Oracle waiting for Discipline, and immediately engaged. The oracle kept a veil of silence pulled over the area around them – complicating spell casting for the party – and Seeker went to town with his various Gun Kata. At one point he let off two shots that seemed to breathe fire in a line between them. Annika and Key ran out of the veil of silence and proceeded to spell into the area, failing to injure Seeker and conjuring a field of entangling vines up out of the ground. Abbad let loose with his bombs, and Saeche stabbed out with empowered daggers. Dory was targeted, because she had the Psalms of Discipline. They killed the Oracle, Seeker escaped, running faster than the players could follow. Yes. They got left in the dust by a frog.

Then it was on to Eismonts again, with nothing in particular delaying them. At least until they returned to the city a few days later to see great columns of smoke and fire thrust up into the sky. As they entered the outskirts, seeing burn marks and wreckage and noticing only a few whimpers coming out of a few buildings, they discovered much of the damage they were seeing was old. Months old, at least. Some of the scorch marks had been left by a particular peculiar offshoot of a tropical Brine Dragon native to the Fever Sea. (That’s what nat 20’s get you. It was amusingly specific.)

They proceeded to pick their way port-wards, dodging a patrol of thirty Dretch marching in a ridiculous resemblance of organization. They also looked for stuff to loot, but found nothing. They also didn’t see anyone until they actually reached the docks, where two rag-clothed figures whom were busy carrying a few rickety crates dropped them and fled into a house.

They looked out over the harbor, searching for signs of the Promise, and finding no signs of any ships at all. Well. Saeche was a bit upset, a Captain without a ship, and she revealed her last name was Sparrow.

The party went to the shack where the two raggedy-figures (unfortunately not Time Lords) had disappeared into, broke the lock, and stepped inside. There proceeded quite a question an answer session, which revealed that a year ago the dragons had come and the Masters (Demons, also not Time Lords) had revealed themselves fully to battle them. Which explained the dretch freely roaming the streets. Since then life hadn’t been very pleasant, and the Masters had maintained a strong presence to combat the continued Dragon raids. When Abbad tried to get into the back room of the shack, one of the figures leaped up with a glorified butter knife in his hands. His children were back there, as it turned out. Five of them. Which became important soon after. Also, when the Man’s Promise was mentioned, the couple repeatedly plead for them to leave; mentioning the Bird and the Fire Man that fought against the master. Cue explosion in the distance, cue adventurers running after it.

The group split up along two streets, letting loose the Silver Raven to find Jace or Vacht. It went down onto a rooftop a few blocks away. Where they’d heard the explosion came from. Racing there, they found Vacht and Jace facing off against a Dretch patrol, with twenty of the creatures already dead. Making quick work of the remaining demons, they were reunited with the two.

Jace’s face had acquired a great scar on one side of his face, and he was dressed in dark green and brown and red leathers stained over and over with blood. He carried a great cold-iron wrought bow, that he still hasn’t explained how he got. He was greatly relieved to find the Captain back. (New Cohort)

Vacht grew nearly a foot in the last year, changing his hair to a Mohawk and riding his ancestral spirit familiar like a certain Avatar.  The handaxe on his hip was riddled with demon’s blood pockmarks and dragon scorches.

The two of them lead the group back to the ship, which has been rendered invisible by a not-quite-possible working of Sandra Quinn’s. They discover her suspended with wrists bleeding freely into the air and a palpable aura suffusing her. To save the ship, she managed some dark bargain with her goddess.

The situation comes out then, as the crew is relieved to have their captain back and Saeche is relieved to be back. They describe the titanic battles between dragons and demons. How Vacht managed to keep a lot of the heat off of them by poking at powerful things and leading them towards other powerful things…then running away. They’ve been struggling for food, have lost a few crew members, and are unable to escape. Despite their cloaking spell, if they move the two dragons still residing in the waters sense the movement and attack. They were lucky to trick them away the last time they’d attempted it. They’ve had little contact with the outside world, except to see Trahk fighting dragons off in the distance with tornados and hurricanes.

This revelation started off a brain storming session for escape plans. Abbad and Dory came up with two separate ideas. Dory thought to call in the favors and good will with ocean spirits she built up on the long journey here. Abbad consulted with the statue of Dagon to arrange a pact. The price is three innocent souls’ blood spilled into the water sacrificed in the demon lord’s name.

The party went with Dory’s plan, but just in case, they took the family they’d encountered previously on board. If plan A works, they’ll be rescuing them. If it doesn’t…the entire crew has pretty much gone Neutral and are willing to sacrifice the kids if it gets them out of there. It’s been a long year.

Dory is lowered into the water to commune with the tides, and after several hours of meditation, the ship begins to move. No dragons attack. No demons fly in. They escape safely out to the main straights, and all the way into the open sea. Key is placed in charge of the family they “rescued.”

They make their way towards the Gothii, while using the downtime to great effect. Annika and Key both spend time crafting spells and working strange magic. Saeche spends it coaxing life out of magic and a gem, investing her soul into the creation of three new living spells. A tiny magic missile named Missy that took the shape of a little glowing dagger, a mage hand named Many and a detect magic in the shape of a topaz rat – which increase her little menagerie to four. Dory begins replenishing her favors, and searching out her hammerhead buddy, “Eyes” for short. Throughout the journey she finds Eyes and five female jigsaw sharks, all of whom she turns Were. The weresharks have a sort of issue with clothing, the notion of consensual sex (or just saying no as opposed to biting necks) and not being animals. Though they’re fascinated by the condition, especially Eyes – who likes showing off barbarian primal muscle and totemic stuff.

It also turned out that Key got Dory pregnant, they think she’s two or three months along.

Along the way they encounter a massive semi futuristic Gothii vessel called The Iron Wyld. To get a better clue as to the size of it, this thing was rising hundreds of feet above the water and easily a dozen times the size of the Promise and made purely of iron. Abbad took Dory’s flying boots, enlarged himself, and flipped up onto the ship’s bow introducing himself to Captain Darius, House of Deveraux, Son of Tyrion, Son of Damien, Son of Gallus, Son of Harringer, out of the Whiteships line, out of the Barren-Winds, member of the Red Circle Engineers, member of the Sycamore Branch, Hunter of the DarkMoor, Captain in the order of Ethereals, Admiral Adjutant of the Bright Sword, Sirigoth.

The captain displayed some pretty awesome magi-technic abilities, revealing a sort of Mass Effect like omnitool on one arm which he used to activate a tractor beam and pull the rest of the Promise up.  The Dramatic introductions were made, impressions were had. Vacht gets play, as does Key, as do the sharks. Dory said her bit about destiny and that whole bit that always works its magic on the Gothii. It did. The Wyld is off to the Eye of Abendego.
Abbad talked about and revealed his nonfunctioning replica of the chaos-ray-gun that he’s been constructing as a side project with axiomatic components. Captain Darius was fascinated with the reverse engineered components of the weapon’s make, and wants to talk more about. To help Abbad complete it he providesd a small rod of True Steel, axiomatic metal forged in otherworldly places in which the Iron Wyld has traveled. Also they call the weapon a Cannon of Law.

Then the Promise was tossed off in a dramatic dive, and both ships go their own separate ways. They passed by the Starstone’s Isle, where hundreds of Gothii ships were docked, and eventually came to a stop at First Port, the Gothii Citadel on the sea. The ocean surrounding was littered with wreakage of Taldoran and Quadiran vessels.

They went through a huge dramatic flashy sail in, after about an hour of talking downtime and making shark pregnancy jokes and quips. When they pull in, Saeche dealt with a positively weasel-like bureaucrat. They spend a few weeks shopping and working in First Port as Key and Dory lift up and repair a small Quadiran sloop as their new home. They rename the ship The Great Tide and move there with the weresharks and their small family. They also take a trip to a Gothii Hospitalle and learn there are twelve baby were-sharks on the way.

After that they sail up one of the major rivers, using the Nakse ki Toma, to navigate and find a place to meet up outside of the ruins of Consil and meet with Cyril. They reach a point where the ships can go no further, and that’s where we ended the session.

Cyril’s Letter

Tagged: awesomeness, demons, destiny, DnD, Dragons, dungeons and dragons, escapes, late, pathfinder, play report, port, Psalms, quests, randomness, sacrifice, ships at sea, space ships